The List: 13 Dec 1985 (Issue 6)

And who can blame her? J arman’s outrageously black satire is filled with violent and disturbing images in its depiction of modern moral decay. Undeniany extreme, it puts its points across with some ferocity. and such bravery is rare in our native cinema. Deserves to be seen. Edinburgh; Filmhouse

0 Letter to Brezhnev ( 15) (Chris Bernard. UK. 1985) Peter Firth. Alfred Molina. Margi Clarke. Alexandra Pigg. 95 mins. Lively Liverpudlian comedy-romance in which two ‘scallies’ paint the town red with a couple of Russian sailors. One girl finds true romance and looks to the Russian leader to further her dreams of a permanent attachment.

Turner in Bartertown, forced into deadly combat with Masterblaster in the Thunderdome arena and hailed as a new messiah by a group of children fresh from the pages of Lord of the Flies Max has every reason to be mad in his third adventure. The action set-pieces are

l I

like Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner) on a script as diffuse and uninvolving as this one. Visually, Legend’s studio-created evocation of the lands of Light and Darkness is quite astonishingly well-detailed and imaginative; a fairytale landscape , peopled with pixies, goblins and leprechauns, that is breathtakingly convincing. Dramatically, on the other hand, Legend is astonishingly shambollc, heavy pre-release cutting well in evidence, leaving the narrative looking like large chunks are missing,

5 and dissipating any tension. A panic

measure designed to pep up the often weary pace perhaps?

Where Legend falls down is in its failure to create a mythology with any emotional resonance. Fairytales are the stuff of the most basic human emotions, but an ill-defined screenplay never gives us any touchineg human

, characters we can root for, and Scott’s ' sloppy handling of the action scenes

does not get us on the edge of our seats the way Star Wars or Raiders did. However, on the positive side, Tim Curry is in rare, lip-smacking form, and

I there are several effectively gloppy

pieces of grotesquerle to scare the kids. But all in all, Legend ls 25,000,000

: dollars worth of beautifully ornate ' emptiness.

(Trevor Johnston)

as exhilarating as ever but the directors spend too much time admiring their canvas of a bloated , post-apocalypse society for the comfort of this viewer. Edinburgh: Playhouse

0 Mask (15) (Peter Bogdanovich, US, 1985) Cher, Eric Stolz, Harry Carey J nr. 120 mins. The true story of California youth Rocky Dennis stricken by a rare bone disease that causes extreme facial disfigurement he is determined to live life to the full and is aided by the strong support of

his unconventional biker mother.

A moving drama, similar to The Elephant Man, that tells its story with grace and precision and without an excess of tearjerking. Magniﬁcent performances from the two leads do more than justice to their human counterparts and are front-runners in the forthcoming award beanfeasts. Worth seeing.

Glasgow; GF'I‘

o A Nightmare on Elm Street ( 18) (Wes Craven. US, 1984) John Saxon, Ronee Blakely. Heather Langenkamp. 91 mins. ln smalltown America a quartet of teenagers share a terrifying communal dream in which they are terrorised by a long-dead local bogey man. Reality and illusion grow inextricably intertwined when what you dream is exactly what transpires and sleep can literally be murderous. Polished. professional shocker, quite imaginative but annoyingly illogical. Nightmare on Elm StreetZ: Freddy 's Revenge is on the way.

Glasgow; ABC (Clarkston Road)

0 1900(18) (Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy/France/W Germany, 1976) Burt Lancaster, Robert De Niro, Gerard Depardieu. Donald Sutherland, Dominique Sanda. The rise of fascism in Italy from 1900 to 1945 is seen through the lives ofa peasant’s son and the son of a local landowner both born on the same day at the beginning ofthe century. Massive dissection of recent history seen from an avowedly left wing point of view which revolves around a simple central narrative filled out with a mass of fascinating detail. Uneven in places, it builds to an unforgettany rousing climax with the peasants celebrating the end of the war and the demise of the padrone. Edinburgh; Filmhouse

o A Passage to India ( PG) (David Lean. UK. 1984) Judy Davis, Peggy Ashcroft. Alec Guinness. 163 mins. A young English girl. in search ofthe ‘real lndia‘. finds her life in turmoil. the combined effect of her awakening sexuality and an ambiguous experience in the famed Malabar caves.

Excellent performances from Ashcroft and James Fox but otherwise a characteristically overblown Lean production with pretty pictures concealing an insubstantial plot. Edinburgh; Filmhouse o PeterPan (U) (Wilfred Jackson . Clyde Geronomi. Hamilton Luske. US. 1952) 76 mins. 'l‘ypically beguiling Disney magic of the little boy who cannot grow up and three London children who join his adventures in Never Never land. Edinburgh; Dominion. Strathclyde; Kelburne

0 Play It Again Sam (15) (Herbert Ross, US, 1972) Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Susan Anspach. 86 mins. When his wife leaves him, a retiring film critic looks for new female company, his mentor Humphrey Bogart guiding him along the obstacle-strewn path to true love. Archetypal early Allen vehicle with our hero embroiled in several desperately funny scenes from